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Blu-ray Review Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XXII – Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)
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Robin9
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Thanks for this very good review. However I don't understand why you state that Tom Tryon and Carol Ohmart are a bit long in the tooth in their performances. I think they're both pretty good and certainly young enough.
I'm not going to buy this box-set because I already have all three titles on Blu-ray, but I'll re-watch The Scarlet Hour again in the next few days.
I'm not going to buy this box-set because I already have all three titles on Blu-ray, but I'll re-watch The Scarlet Hour again in the next few days.
benbess
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Got this set a while ago based on this positive review, and finally opened it last night. As a long-time fan of VistaVision, Michael Curtiz, and Nat King Cole the first film I watched was "The Scarlet Hour" released in 1956. The first thing I was looking for was the "VistaVision effect," that startling clarity found in movies filmed in this format when they are actually able to use the original large format film elements, and it was there. The Scarlet Hour looks really good and and been completely cleaned up.
This noir has some good location photography in LA, and you can tell that at times they were trying to make a classic like Double Indemnity. For instance, instead of a scene in a grocery store between the two guilty parties there's similar scene in a record store lol. But after making movies that usually had lavish production budgets, from 1935's Captain Blood to 1954's two big movies White Christmas and The Egyptian, The Scarlet Hour was an economical production of just $1 million, as revealed in the insightful audio commentary by Curtiz expert Alan Rode. Curtiz tried to get Barbara Stanwyck for the movie but she wasn't available. I actually did like newcomer Carol Ohmart, who certainly is glamorous and gives a good performance from my pov. Newcomer Tom Tryon was also good, and I recognized him from tv shows including Westerns in the 1960s. Looking him up, I found out that he retired from acting in 1971 when his horror novel The Other became a bestseller and was made into a movie with the same title that I also have. Tryon said he made more money writing novels than acting, and had more fun with it too. E. G. Marshall is in this as the cop, and does a good job. Effective appearance by singing superstar Nat King Cole performing one of his many hit songs, Never Let Me Go in a nightclub. I've loved the singing of Nat King Cole for decades, and have pretty much all of his records on CD, and so this was a treat.
The Scarlet Hour as a whole is a well-made film noir, but for me the ending wasn't dramatic enough. The screenplay needed another rewrite from my pov to enhance the tragic elements. But it seemed like a solid B to me, and I enjoyed watching it. One of the things about being a fan of old movies is that it seems like you can almost always discover movies that are new to you by old favorites.
This noir has some good location photography in LA, and you can tell that at times they were trying to make a classic like Double Indemnity. For instance, instead of a scene in a grocery store between the two guilty parties there's similar scene in a record store lol. But after making movies that usually had lavish production budgets, from 1935's Captain Blood to 1954's two big movies White Christmas and The Egyptian, The Scarlet Hour was an economical production of just $1 million, as revealed in the insightful audio commentary by Curtiz expert Alan Rode. Curtiz tried to get Barbara Stanwyck for the movie but she wasn't available. I actually did like newcomer Carol Ohmart, who certainly is glamorous and gives a good performance from my pov. Newcomer Tom Tryon was also good, and I recognized him from tv shows including Westerns in the 1960s. Looking him up, I found out that he retired from acting in 1971 when his horror novel The Other became a bestseller and was made into a movie with the same title that I also have. Tryon said he made more money writing novels than acting, and had more fun with it too. E. G. Marshall is in this as the cop, and does a good job. Effective appearance by singing superstar Nat King Cole performing one of his many hit songs, Never Let Me Go in a nightclub. I've loved the singing of Nat King Cole for decades, and have pretty much all of his records on CD, and so this was a treat.
The Scarlet Hour as a whole is a well-made film noir, but for me the ending wasn't dramatic enough. The screenplay needed another rewrite from my pov to enhance the tragic elements. But it seemed like a solid B to me, and I enjoyed watching it. One of the things about being a fan of old movies is that it seems like you can almost always discover movies that are new to you by old favorites.
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